I don’t know about you, but I’ve never considered myself a rich or wealthy man. Um, of course, all of that is relative, and who gets to define what rich is anyway? But I shared a uh devotion with our staff last week based on 1 Timothy chapter 6, and let me read you a little bit about what it was I was sharing. I’m beginning here in verse 17. This is what Paul writes. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to beaughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. If you’re like me, I have a tendency within myself to read these opening words of verse 17. As for the rich in this present age and discount them as though I am not being addressed, it’s just kind of natural for me. He’s talking to the rich people. He’s not talking to me. However, reading this passage in context, in the context of the rest of chapter 6, and kind of drawing some parallels back up to some things that were said earlier in the chapter, chapter, I’ve begun to kind of change my thinking on this particular passage and maybe some other New Testament passages as well. This is what Paul wrote earlier in the same chapter, 1 Timothy chapter 6, and I’m I’m just picking up in a verse in about verse six. He says, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of the world. But if we have food and clothing. With these we will be content, but those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires. He goes on to talk about destruction. Seems to me as I put these two passages together and synthesize them a little bit. Paul is discussing here in chapter 6 what it means to be content. To be content, he says, is to have food and clothing. And if we have these things, we will be content. We will have really everything we need. Then he goes on to address riches and richness and I don’t know exactly how you define it but it seems kind of nebulous from this passage that richness is defined as having something beyond food and clothing. Those bare necessities that keep us alive. This as you think about it might make sense in the context of the ancient Roman world where some scholars believe that in the ancient Roman world in which Paul lived there may have been as much as 50% of the population of the Roman Empire was an actual slave, the property of someone else. Uh even if that is not true, even if it’s only close to true or in the ballpark of being true, it could be said that anyone that Paul is addressing who has much more than the basic necessities of food and clothing might be able to identify themselves as being among the rich. Certainly, I don’t think you would disagree. If Paul were to come back in our day and age to walk into my living room or yours and take a little look around at how we live, he would probably categorize everyone who is watching this video right now as rich. Seems likely to me. You can disagree if you if you’d like to and we can have a healthy conversation about it. I’m totally open to being corrected. But if it’s true that we should listen anytime the Bible addresses rich people and apply it as something that that may apply directly to us, then this is how we would finish reading this passage, paying close attention. As for the rich in this present age, I’m skipping down. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is is truly life to be good, rich in good works, to to uh be generous, to share with others, to invest yourself in the kingdom of God. I began to read this passage a little differently, a little more personally, and to understand that these blessings that God is talk that Paul is talking about that God is talking about through Paul of storing up treasure for ourselves as a good foundation for the future so that we may take hold with that which is truly life. These are things that don’t just belong to some nebulous class of rich people above me. They probably belong as opportunities for me to lay hold of and enjoy. And they probably lay as an opportunity before you for you to take hold of and enjoy in the spirit. As you know, Passion Life as a nonprofit organization and like many other nonprofit organizations looks toward the end of the year, the fourth quarter of the year, as a time of giving and generosity among folks like you, people who have supported the Passion Life Fellowship through prayer, finances, and many other ways throughout the year. This is the time, the season when, at least in America, people begin to look over their finances, look over how God has blessed them throughout the year, and begin to consider year-end gifts, ways that they can be generous in specific ways as a an act of worship or gratitude toward God or way is to go back and re-evaluate what really what really impassions me, what really excites me. Some people who follow and support the work of Passion Life are excited about the fact that we are a pro-life organization and we are exactly that. We go to the areas of the world where the need is highest where the abortion rates are very very high in most cases far higher than the rates of abortion that we find even in the United States. That surprises some people. We go to the hard places on purpose. And if you are a prolife supporter and you support things that uh where you want to know that your money is being invested in life and the cause of life and especially in those places where life is most vulnerable, we would ask you to entertain the idea that Passion Life is a perfect place for you to consider and pray about placing your charity. If you are a supporter of Passion Life already, we would encourage you and challenge you to look to the coming year to look at what God has done in our past. Look what God has done in your present and past. Look with faith to what to what God is going to do in your future and consider upping your involvement in some way with passion life coming into the coming year. That’s for the prolifers. If however you are really turned on and and and and jazzed by missions and by the the name and the fame of Jesus Christ going forth among all the peoples of the earth, including in the dark, dark areas, the 1040 window, the hard-to-reach places, the places where missionaries have skipped over for the easier places in the beginning, and now those are the hard places that are left. That jazzes me too. I am a missionary at heart. Many of us at Passion Life are. So, if you are a mission supporter, we would challenge you to think over your passions. Pray about whether or not God would be asking you to either begin investing your generosity in the work of Passion Life in the coming year or to increase your commitment of generosity to passion life in the coming year because we are the marriage, the nexus, the crossroads of missions and pro-life work. There are just very few organizations that are doing that. We brothers and sisters are rich in this present age. It’s just almost impossible for anyone to make a solid case against that. So we have the opportunity to lay up a foundation for our future that we They take hold of that which is truly life. And Paul exhorts us to do that by storing up so that treasure in doing good and being rich in good works to be generous and to be ready to share. Those are the ways that we can take hold together of what Passion Life is being asked by God to do in 2025 and beyond. Thank you for all you’re doing. God bless you.